I’m sure that the new Saudi owners and Jared Kushner will be looking into hacking up human developer cost by any means necessary.
Oh man, this is hilarious from the outside because I’ve worked for private equity before. They are the biggest hype bros that exist. They are in their own reality every time. They can see something as small as a random tweet and think that it’s the truth. There’s no way this goes well for them.
2 examples. Long story but if you want to hear how smart “Private equity” is in tech, here are my two anecdotal experiences:
First, I was an engineer on a project that we were wrapping up a major “V2” rewrite of. We were weeks from finishing this now year long project. They came and asked “How long until released” and I said a month until clients can start using the beta. (Padding a week or so just in case). They didn’t just come back and say “You have a 2-3 weeks”, they came back and said “You have 1 week because we have signed contracts saying that it’ll be ready by then”. What. I was the head engineer. On whose authority did they do that? Who told them it would be ready? Of course no one, they just said it should be done, engineers lazy, they super smart. The project isn’t done in time of course, clients pissed, and they fired the dev team. I hear a year later the entire org had shuttered. They pissed away the entire investment.
Second, again working leading up a major project, a whole new idea in the fintech space. Team is jazzed. We push for 9 months and we release - zero bugs, not a cent lost, we test scaling and we should be able to handle millions of users - we’re ready. We release to… zero fanfare. None. We had no idea what was happening, we’re engineers so we’re used to it but no one cared. Turns out we were being acquired! Hooray said the investors! So much money! The other company claims to be doing what we are already… interesting since we had a novel idea. So we merge, and we decide to do a bakeoff (test each product against each others). Ours of course passes. Theirs tips over after 100 users. Ruby on Rails monolith, they’ve never had more than 100 users. Turns out they just slapped some stuff on a postgres database and called it a fintech product. Business investors at the top high five, show off how much money they’re going to make. Same thing, our loyal customers who were excited for our product got pissed and left. They lied to everyone else about the product just like the other place, the lies eventually caught up, and the stock tanked. Now they have two worthless companies. From what I heard they didn’t make a single sale in Q1 or Q2 of this year, and are shuttering the offices and moving engineering to India. Typical big brain business move.
Never work for private equity. If you ever get bought by private equity immediately start planning your exit. This is a card game to them, they’re sitting at the table in Vegas and are doing anything they can to make it look like the company is valuable just long enough to con someone else into buying it. If they make any profit it will go to them, the company will not see a dime of it. Your budgets will be less than shoestring, you will not have bonuses or dinners out, everything goes to them. You immediately are replaceable, with any, and I mean any developer or AI bullshit being able to replace you. Everyone at EA should be looking for new jobs right now.
One of the many things that’s infuriating about this is that these people are so profoundly stupid, but they keep getting all the money and power. If there was any justice in the world, people like the decision makers in your stories would be living a very spartan life somewhere, reflecting on how they are so fucking senseless.
And yet people continue to worship these “job creators” and “visionaries”.
Trust me man, I’ve thought the same thing. The first story? With the contracts signed? If they had just asked me and listened to me it would have been successful. We had clients chomping at the bit wanting the new app, and obviously people ready to sign. We had guaranteed money - but it all failed because they thought they knew better than the head engineer.
The real kicker? You want to know the absolute punchline? This was a educational platform specializing in live video for professors, to aid with virtual students. This story happened in late 2019.
Any time I hear “capitalism breeds innovation”, I feel like grabbing a chair and swinging it.
“Capitalism managed to accidentally not choke an innovative project in the crib again! Yet another win for capitalism!!”
Engineers and creatives breed innovation. Capitalism exploits it.
Citizen Kane quote goes something like: it’s not hard to make a lot of money if the only thing you want is to make a lot of money.
I’m imagining that picture with ea as death visiting Westwood and bioware etc.
But to the left you see ea death is in its own room and opening the door is the figure of private equity. A bloodstained tzeentchian nightmare screeching from the void.
If Bioware wasn’t already dead from the corporate bullshit that was Dragon Age 4 (and that comes from me who still found enjoyment in DA4), then this is. I doubt that Mass Effect 5 game will ever see the light of day.
But you think ME4 will?
ME4 was Andromeda.
Kinda. But that’s like saying Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel was 3, and 3 was 4, even though 4 just came out, and isn’t 5.
Ostensibly, they’re actually working on ME4 which would be labeled thusly.
We have no official name, the bloggers and media are calling it Mass Effect 5, it’s the fifth Mass Effect game, this is just pedantics now. Until there’s a title, Mass Effect five is perfectly fine.
Except I’ve only seen it called Mass Effect Four.
Yeah. I’ve been a part of two companies acquired by private equity, and the playbook is to cut all spending on employees through any means. Slow pay all vendors until they won’t work with you. Kill product development. Raise prices in predatory fashion. And… while the books briefly look good and before it all falls apart in a few years… sell to someone.
Both times, it did not work. Well, I guess it worked for whoever sold the company to private equity. And I guess the private equity installed leadership of tall confident sounding idiots made big salaries and bonuses, which is nice. I’m just not sure where the money came from. If I understand capitalism, it probably came from our taxes somehow.
It’s such a well known play now, I keep wondering who would possibly think buying from private equity is a good thing
Well, it’s good to the management that sells the company. They get paid.
A sucker is born every minute.
This is a card game to them, they’re sitting at the table in Vegas and are doing anything they can to make it look like the company is valuable just long enough to con someone else into buying it.
It’s not even a card game, it’s lotto scratchers.
A card game implies they give thought and treat each situation unique and change strategies
They’re buying billion dollar companies left and right hoping for a quick payday because they’re obsessed with watching their bank account numbers go up.
First story is not exclusive to private equity. Sales and even business owners have no idea how long things take. We once had a project that would take about a year, sales signed the contract to be done in like 1 month. The saving grace was the client delayed their start date, giving us the time we needed. Another one: guy buys an old building with plans to tear it down and build a new one. Tells the news “we’ll break ground next month”. Two years later they break ground.
Private equity is why y9u should never rely on a paid or profit service.
God, every new things i hear from this is worse and WORSE.
Would be worse if it wasn’t EA.
Like dumping a bloated rotting corpse in a pit of radioactive sewage; hard to make it worse.
Hmm, that’s a good point.
For me it’s not. Don’t get me wrong, I hate AI.
But also, I don’t buy games from EA for the past 10 years.
So all I’m hearing is that the Madden series will either be sold off, or die.
I only bought every few years. Because really, why buy 2013 when you have 2012? Buuuuut, you can justify buying 2017, when all you have is 2012.
I think that was the first Madden game I bought where it didn’t have a season mode.
I do not give a FUUUUUCK about franchise mode. I don’t care about running a team. I don’t care about controlling an individual player from high school to NFL. I don’t care about designing plays. I don’t care about roster trades.
I don’t even know the names of the players. I don’t know what a nickle or dime is. I just know this play is a passing play, and I can either throw to L1, or X. Then I let the play develop, and see who’s open.
All I want to do is play 16 games, and if we make it, the playoffs. Once we either win or don’t win the superbowl, the game is over for me.
Literally the only 2 modes I give a flying fuck about are exhibition and season. Don’t know don’t care what player packs are, or elite cards, or any of this XP bullshit. I do not give one flying fuck.
But let the guy run, and I press the button, and he throws the ball. Then if he catches it, let me run with it.
And they took away the part of the game I spend 80% of my time in. So I took away any sales I gave them since.
Actually, shit, this is impressive.
I think you just explained how football is played to me in a way I can actually understand!
Thanks for that.
See, the thing is, the guy with the ball? He’s the one with the ball.
And the guy with the ball??? Well he’s the one with the ball!!! And as we all know, the guy who’s playing with his balls, is the one who controls EVERYTHING!!! So you can’t just give the ball to just anyone. I mean my god! What if you try to give the ball to some guy who’s not ready to run??? You don’t see Brady throwing a football to Stephen Hawking!!! You know why??? Because he’s dead! And also because he can’t run…because, again, he’s dead. Dead people can’t run.
I’m honestly baffled why Usain Bolt never played football. Imagine giving that guy the ball and telling him “your job…is to RUN!!!”
Wasted oppertunity is what that is! Yeah, sure, he competed in the olympics. But just imagine if he made the Cleveland Browns into a winning team! He’d be the highest paid athlete EVER!!!
People would say “You won the BROWNS a championship??? Holy fuck! Lets get you on a box of Wheaties!”
I mean…right?
new owners are going to utilize AI in order to cut costs
How original and innovative. It’s like these guys are doing something no other company is trying…
I look forward to nobody buying their AI slop.
Honestly, if AI was responsible for cranking out a decade’s worth of FIFA and Madden, would anybody notice?
Probably yes, because AI might change thing too much while right now they can just tweak minor stuff and resell it.
The 5 diehard fans that pre-order each new entry and play nothing else might.
You wish it was just 5.
Get fucked EA I wont buy shit
As someone who uses AI regularly for software engineering and ~2/3 of the time finds it very effective…
…there is no way it can produce quality games or gaming experiences.
I look forward to watching EA collapse. Get rekt.
As a developer/tech lead who also uses ai i bloody agree. This is going to be baaaadddd. Didnt know ea could get worse
People still buy fifa, they always dod and always will. And with the billions they spend on lootboxes, they probably make their money back
There always places. I’m skeptical about saving significant money but what about graphical or story elements? I’m not too familiar with how games are built but ai can generate arbitrary “artwork” and even music
For me the beauty of some games is the knowledge of the writers involved in a story or the composers for the music.
If I know upfront it’s all AI generated I think that’d ruin it for me. But I realize that’s just my opinion.
The human employees may use AI to help speed things up or do repetitive/monotonous tasks, but without human oversight the AI will be functionally worthless for most things due to lack of knowledge over instructions. Add on the insecure and unoptimized code AI spits out and it’s gonna be fun watching the dumpster fire.
This going to be a total venture capitalist play. It was already set that the fifty billion dollar acquisition was also going to be placing EA in like twenty billion in debts. They’ll flood it with more debts, piece the IP’s all out, legal launder the money, and take ea into bankruptcy.
EA is dead.
I hope they sell spore to a better company
yeah, good riddance. As long as ubisoft doesn’t suck up the bigger ips it can only get better
Fuck AI.
Fuck the Saudi royal family.
Fuck Jared Kushner.Boycott all EA games.
I’m just really glad that I don’t play any games from EA…
Since Bioware is just a shell of its former self, I only care about Hazelight’s games which are published by EA. It takes two is one of the best games ever made.
I really liked EA. Back on the C64 and the Amiga.
Well yeah, if they cook the books like Private Equity always does, they can suck some profit out of it while destroying the company. And then later blame it on AI, why not? … Shit, the New York Times and the Washington Post would probably roll with that story.
Normally, a 2nd company is used where they exploit the first to further grow this one and funnel any actual money into it while bankrupting the first. I am curious to see what aspect of this helps that and what company it will be that profits from it.
Step 1: AI
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!
Hmmmm, I did think you could not make EA worse. But it seems like they are going to give it a go.
You laugh, but AI is a pretty good fit for EA. Repeatedly churning out new iterations of the same exact thing over and over every year, with the roster changed and the art fucked about with a tiny irrelevant amount? Yup
EA already in the shitter. About to become alot worse. 50 billion wasted.
My guess it that they’ll do some financial fuckery that shouldn’t be legal, and may not even be, and come away with profit leaving someone holding the bag.
Cellar boxing
Then let’s hope that AI will pay to play it.
